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Photo Filter Apps: Understanding Analogue Nostalgia in the New Media Ecology Photo Filter Apps: Understanding Analogue Nostalgia in the New Media Ecology Caoduro, E. (2014). Photo Filter Apps: Understanding Analogue Nostalgia in the New Media Ecology. Networking Knowledge, 7(2), 67-82. https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2014.72.338 Published in: Networking Knowledge Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights © 2019, Media Communications & Cultural Studies Association This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:02. Oct. 2021 Photo Filter Apps: Understanding Analogue Nostalgia in the New Media Ecology ELENA CAODURO1, University of Southampton ABSTRACT As digital media have become more pervasive and entrenched in our daily routines, a nostalgic countertrend has increasingly valued the physical and tactile nature of the analogue image. In the past few years, technologically obsolete devices, such as lo-fi cameras and vinyl records, have not faded out of sight completely but are instead experiencing a comeback. At the same time, digital media capitalise on the nostalgia for the analogue and fetishise the retro aesthetics of old technologies. This article explores the emergence of photo filter and effect applications which allow users to modify digital photos, adding signifiers of age such as washed-out colours, scratches and torn borders. It is argued that these new technologies, with programs such as Instagram, Hipstamatic and Camera 360, bring back the illusory physicality of picture-taking through digital skeuomorphism. Drawing on media archaeology practice, this article interrogates the limits of the retro sensibility and the fetishisation of the past in the context of digital media, in particular by focusing on the case study of the start-up Instagram. This photo filter application neither merely stresses the twilight nature of photography nor represents the straightforward digital evolution of previous analogue features. Rather, it responds to the necessity to feel connected to the past by clear and valued signs of age, mimicking a perceived sense of loss. Faced with the persistent hipster culture and the newness of digital media, photo filter apps create comfortable memories, ageing pictures and adding personal value. As such, it will be argued that this phenomenon of nostalgia for analogue photography can be linked to the concepts of ritual and totem. By providing a critical history of Instagram as a photo-sharing social network, this article aims to explain new directions in the rapidly changing system of connective media. KEYWORDS Digital photography, social media, Instagram, vintage, nostalgia, totem. Introduction In 1888 George Eastman registered the Kodak name and launched a revolutionary device: roll film and the first pre-loaded camera, the Kodak No. 1, a successful but very expensive machine that cost $25US, a large sum at that time (Richter 2006, 17). It was not until February 1900 with the commercialisation of the cheaper model, the Brownie Camera, made of wood and cardboard and sold instead at $1US, that photography became a mass phenomenon. Since then, photography has become an established artistic medium, a business Photo Filter Apps 68 activity for professional photographers, and a global recreational hobby for dilettantes. Although Kodak ended camera and printer sales and filed for bankruptcy in 2012 (CEA 2013), millions of people around the globe still snap pictures with their analogue and digital devices. In July 2013, however, sales of digital cameras in the United States of America started to fall both in terms of revenue and in unit shipments, as more consumers turn to smartphones with high-resolution cameras to take snapshots and share them instantly through social media (CEA 2013, 1).2 We are again witnessing a transformation in the media ecology, where smartphones equipped with GPS, wireless connectivity and powerful cameras are used innovatively, changing digital photography and making their use easy and accessible at any time and at any place. The impact of the phenomenon is so widespread that Oxford English Dictionary recently declared ‘selfie’ as the most prominent term that significantly increased in use in the English language in 2013, becoming their International Word of the Year. Defined as ‘a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website’ (Oxford English Dictionary 2013), the buzzword ‘selfie’ epitomises the popularisation of photo-sharing websites and this new phase in digital photography.3 Photo filter applications such as Instagram, Snapseed and Hipstamatic mark a new era in digital photography, one which allows users to easily improve mediocre images taken with camera phones through the application of vintage filters, film scratches, and polarisation effects. This article provides a critical history of the rise of Instagram, situating it in relation to broader debates about mobile digital photography, the coexistence and overlapping of analogue and digital, and the emergence of social networks. By examining technical, economic, social and cultural aspects, I will clarify how recent transformations have driven our experience of photography and temporality. Focusing on a descriptive account of how photo filter apps affect our relationship with passing time, this article further explores the phenomenon of analogue nostalgia and why, in the digital age, even young generations, the so-called ‘millennials’, are driven back to the analogue, or its digital imitation. Secondly, such an integrated history of photo filter apps and social networks assists in the comprehension of the new media ecosystem and current tensions within digital tribes, namely how large groups of users interact within giant platforms. Instagram: technology and business model A particular trend in digital photography emerged around 2010: instead of sharing Photoshopped and airbrushed snaps, where flaws are hidden and imperfections minimised, amateur photographers – but also artists and professionals – began intentionally modifying their digital pictures with discolouration, technical faults and signs of ageing or other defects. This response to digital perfection has been primarily noticeable through smartphone and tablet applications, such as Instaplus, Picfx, Hipstamatic and Camera+, which allow users to swiftly retouch their own shots by playing with lighting, pre-set filters and frames to simulate the physicality of analogue photography. Photo filter and effect apps capitalise on the growing nostalgia for the analogue and fetishise the retro aesthetic by highlighting valued signs of age, such as torn borders, film scratches and yellowish colours, thus ultimately leading to an aestheticisation of imperfections (see Chandler and Livingston 2012). Networking Knowledge 7(2) Time and Technology Caoduro 69 Instagram is probably the most popular of these applications.4 Created as a start-up by Kevin Synstrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010, it reported 200 million monthly active users in March 2014 (Tam 2014). Throughout Autumn 2013, Instagram experienced a spectacular growth: a 23% increase, more than other well-established social platforms like LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter (Bennett 2014). It is available for free for a variety of operating systems; initially it was only available for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, but it later produced versions for Google Android phones and an official beta for Windows. Instagram can be defined as a user-generated content site with a strong networking component that enables users to take pictures and short videos, and share them on different platforms, including Tumblr and, if location tracking is enabled, Foursquare.5 On its website, visitors are welcomed with the page shown below (figure 1); the words in bold, Instagram’s marketing pitch, underline the strength of its social appeal: instantaneity, attractiveness and entertainment. In an instant one-click procedure, users can modify their photos through a series of pre-set filters that reproduce specific colour casts associated with different decades, as well as recreating the look of iconic cameras such as the Polaroid, with its characteristic square white border. In an interview in The Telegraph, one of the company’s founders, Kevin Systrom is quoted explaining the concept behind the origin of Instagram: The idea was to make mobile photography fast, beautiful and fun. We learned from experience that taking photos on the phone didn’t lead to the results that we wanted, so we created the filters and tools to achieve a more artistic experience. […]
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